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Hanukkah Marks the Complexities of American Jews’ Assimilation

Hanukkah isn’t for everyone. This has been true since its beginnings, as it celebrates victory in internecine military conflict and a triumph over assimilation.
©ben/stock.adobe.com
©ben/stock.adobe.com
Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Yehuda is a leading thinker and author on the meaning of Israel to American Jews, on Jewish history and Jewish memory, and on questions of leadership and change in American Jewish life. Yehuda led the creation of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America in 2010 as a pioneering research and educational center for the leadership of the North American Jewish community, and teaches in

“Hanukkah isn’t for everyone. This has been true since its beginnings, as it celebrates victory in internecine military conflict and a triumph over assimilation. Even so, the majority of the 15 million Jews in the world will celebrate the festival of lights this week and next, which makes it strange that we’ll likely hear reflections in the largest public venues from those who are most ambivalent about it and don’t even identify as Jewish. Sometimes it seems that America is a deeply religious country that doesn’t know how to talk about religious sincerity in public without an airing of grievance, in a story of its loss, or through a political lens. “

Read the full article on Religion Dispatches

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